


miles away

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, angst angst angst, be forewarned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: It's Christmas and Scully won't come downstairs.





	miles away

**Author's Note:**

> for 2momsmakearight X Files Revisited challenge. and um, angst? i can’t emphasize the angst enough. this is the worst thing i’ve ever written. it is about christmas though! the title is shamelessly borrowed from frank sinatra.
> 
> (seriously tho. this hurts.)

_“Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow.” - Frank Sinatra, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_

**i.**

_christmas eve_

It’s been an endless cycle of hating himself and loneliness, but it’s the holiday season. He builds a fire in an attempt at cheer. There’s no tree, no presents. Nothing to suggest that it’s Christmas Eve besides a fucking roaring fire. He sits in front of it, on the floor with his hands clasped around his knees like a little kid, and waits for her to come down.

She doesn’t. At 11:30, he stands and heads up the staircase to the door outside what she has claimed as her room. He taps on the door gently. “Scully?”

“Go away, Mulder.”

He sighs, leaning his forehead against the wood. He doesn’t know why he thought this would work, doesn’t know who he’s fooling. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

He tries again, gesturing pleadingly even though she can’t see him through the thick, wooden door. “I just thought you might like to come down and…”

“Fuck you!” Something slams on the other side of the door. “You’re the reason I can’t spend it with my mother!”

Mulder closes his eyes. “You know I’m sorry about that,” he says quietly.

Footsteps creak along the ancient floorboards until it sounds like she’s standing just on the other side of the door. “I can’t do this, Mulder,” she says, and it sounds like she’s crying. “I can’t.”

“Please.” He can’t spend another Christmas with nothing but the nightmarish images behind his eyelids. He doesn’t even think he missed her this much when she was abducted. At least then she wasn’t choosing to stay away from him.

“I want to leave,” she says. She is crying. He recognizes the tremor in her voice. “I can’t do this, Mulder. I can’t do this anymore.”

He presses his hands hard over his face, like he can erase it all. _Just come out_ , he mouths. _I miss you. Please, Scully. Please_.

“Please go away, Mulder.” The floorboards creak like she is walking away. “I need to be alone.”

He stands back to stare at her door, presses his hand flat against it. “Merry Christmas, Scully,” he whispers.

He goes downstairs to wait for midnight.

**ii.**

_christmas eve_

He writes her a letter, slipping it under the crack of her door in the early hours of Christmas Eve morning. It’s a silly thing he might’ve written when they were both a lot younger. Half love letter, half apology. All plea. He spends the day hoping she will come down. She never does.

He hears her footsteps on the stairs and snaps his head up to look for her. He never even sees a glimpse of her; her feet are retreating before he can even make it to the bottom of the stairwell. He doesn’t follow. He knows she doesn’t want to see him.

**iii.**

_christmas eve_

He halfway thinks he’s dreaming when she comes down, light glinting off of her bare feet and white shirt and bright hair. She stands awkwardly in the doorway, hands tucked into her armpits.

He almost trips over the floorboards as he gets to his feet. “Scully… hey,” he breathes, excited for a wild moment.

She stares fixedly at the ground. “I got lonely,” she mumbles.

He wants to pull her against him and never let go. He reaches out like he might touch her. “Scully…”

“I don’t want to be down here, though.” And her voice is sharper here, angrier. “I mean, you’re the reason. You’re the reason I’m miserable.”

Mulder yanks his hand back like he’s been burned.

“God, Mulder!” She balls her small hands into fists. “I know I can’t completely blame you, but goddamn it. You’re the reason I don’t see my family! You’re the reason I’ll never be a mother!”

“You’re still a mother,” he says quietly. “Just because you lose your child doesn’t mean you’re not a mother.”

“Fuck you.” It’s not a grief-crazy shout from the other side of the door - it’s cold and sharp and it sounds like she means it more than it ever has. “ _Fuck you_.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’msorryi’msorryi’msorry.”

Scully hasn’t looked at him once since she’s come down. She’s staring fixedly at a spot on the wall. “I want to hate you,” she says coldly. “I want to hate you more than anything.”

“I hate myself enough for the both of us,” he says quietly. Resignedly. He may never get her back. He should make peace with it, right now. Get used to being alone.

She shakes her head wildly. “I… I can’t do this.” She turns to leave the room. Mulder watches her go. He doesn’t try to stop her.

“Merry Christmas, Mulder,” she offers up like an afterthought. Her feet creak on the ancient stairs.

**iv.**

_christmas eve_

It really is lonely in the old, drafty room. Scully pulls a blanket from the bed around her, and sits on the hardwood floor.  She’s never felt more alone.

She thinks about him in this chilled house. Alone for too many Christmases. She thinks about herself, everything she’s lost.

She’s always forgiven him before, so why should now be any different? _Because it was everything,_ she reminds herself. _There’s nothing left now. Nothing._

Her cold-numbed fingers pull the blanket a little tighter around her, and she tucks her face into it. She misses everything. She misses her mother.

She misses Mulder, just on the other side of the door. She hates him and misses him in the same breath.

_There’s nothing left now_ , she reminds herself. _Nothing left except for him_.

She stands and walks downstairs with the blanket slipping around her shoulder like a ridiculous cape. He’s in the room with the fire, staring at the half-lit hearth with his head lolling against the back of the love seat. She reaches for his hand.

His eyes widen as he sees her. “Scully? What are you doing?”

“I want to hate you,” she says honestly. “I want to. But I’ve missed you so much.”

“You _should_ hate me.”

“I don’t.”

“Do you remember what I told you once?” Their fingers tangle messily together. “That you were right to want to leave? That you should get as far away from me as possible? I wish you’d listened, Scully. I wish to God you’d listened.”

“I couldn’t leave you.” She sits across from him, facing him and looking at him seriously. “Don’t you understand, Mulder? I wanted to be here with you. I didn’t want what came of it, and for years now, I’ve been trying to move past it. But I don’t think we can. I think we have to face it. Make the best… of it.”

“You’ve blamed me for so long,” he says hoarsely. “And you’re not wrong. You’re not. I deserve everything you said to me. But what… why the sudden change of mind?”

It is just the two of them for miles and miles, no one else. She will never see her mother again. She swallows and kisses his knuckles. “You’re all I have, Mulder,” she says, broken. “There’s nothing else left. You’re it.”

He thought she’d never forgive him. Somehow, they close the space between them and just hold each other for a minute. Her fingers curl almost possessively into the back of his shirt. He is crying, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She doesn’t say it’s okay. They both know it’s not. But the stillness of her chest against his feels like forgiveness.

After what seems like a lifetime, she moves so that she is sitting beside him and buries her nose in the crook of his shoulder. It’s the most contact they’ve had in what feels like forever, and he brings his arm around her shoulders. “It’s not so bad, living here,” she says.

Mulder laughs bitterly. “Don’t pretend with me, Scully. It’s a dump. I hate it here. We both hate it here.”

“Well,” she says, licking her lips thoughtfully. “At least we haven’t seen or heard from Lyda or Maurice. I have a feeling they’d only… increase the tension.”

He rubs her arm to spread some warmth. “Thank goodness for small favors.”

_Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_ comes on the Victrola, and Scully visibly shudders. Mulder can feel it in his side. He reaches up and lifts the arm off of the record. They sit in silence for a long minute. He pushes his nose into her hair. It’s soft, despite its lack of scent. Their skin is cold against each other.

“I’m so sorry, Scully,” he repeats. “You’ve got to believe me when I say… I never wanted you to die.”

It’d all been an attempt at fun, an excuse for time with her, to do what he’d always wanted to do and spend Christmas with her, he hadn’t really believed it would end this way… watching it happen had been the worst moment of his life, even as it all came to an end. Like Bowman, but a thousand times worse. Real. The pain in his own chest hadn’t even compared.

She buries her face further against his shoulder. “I never wanted you to die either,” she whispers. “I loved you. I always thought I could save you.”

The fire crackles. Outside, in the entry hall, their blood still covers the floor. Bloodstains don’t go away, even after fifty years.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m really sorry for this entire thing.
> 
> so this was partially inspired a post i made like forever ago (morbid au: what would’ve happened if m/s had gone through with the lover’s pact in htgsc), partially inspired by a consideration of how dark htgsc is, despite how fucking hilarious it is in that same breath. alos, i was mentally channeling ahs: murder house and sixth sense while writing this. u can blame my family for getting me into ahs.


End file.
